


write more of a little more

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: College-ish AU, aka all of the winter tropes in one au, winter ski trip au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-09-20 19:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: After all, it’s notherfault that their respective best friends took to each other like moths to a flame and ditched them to go flirt in the great outdoors. In all likelihood Betty’s vacation is just as ruined as Jughead’s, so they may as well commiserate together.or, a double prompt fill for my own personal festive fic fest 2018: you’re my hot ski instructor and i’m failing the bunny hill (requested by jugandbettsdetectiveagency) & our friends rent a cabin to go skiing and we’re the only ones who stay inside (requested by loveleee)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it would appear that forced festivity worked on my writer's block, so here we are. 
> 
> (title and overall demeanor comes from new year's eve by first aid kit)

Archie Andrews can go burn in a pit of hellfire.

Or death by a thousand cuts.

Or literally anything that would make his best friend as miserable as Jughead currently is, being subjected to a children’s ski lesson at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning. All because their weekend plans just _had_ to be derailed by Archie finding a pretty girl.

A pretty girl whose _family owns a goddamn ski lodge._

And now Archie is showing off on a black diamond in the puppydog hopes of impressing the heir apparent of _Lodge Family Ski Lodge_ —not-so-cleverly shortened to _Lodge-Lodge—_ while Jughead was unceremoniously dragged out of his room to be taught how to ski by this girl’s best friend, who seemed to think she was doing him a favor by taking pity on him.

Little did the ponytailed Energizer Bunny know, the entire point of agreeing to this “last hurrah” trip with Archie was so Jughead could hole up in a room with a nice couch, at a location with a massive, five-star buffet, to finish his senior thesis and work on grad school applications. Therefore he did not at all appreciate being bribed out of his blanket-and-snack nest with the promise of waffles, only to be harangued by Archie, his new obsession Veronica, and Veronica’s smiley best friend Betty, have long pieces of fiberglass strapped to his feet, and be lectured on the purposes of “pizza versus french fries” in a group full of kids whose designer ski suits probably cost as much as his car.

The only— _only—_ saving grace is that smiley, ponytailed Betty Cooper is much more endearing when she’s using a big sister voice to talk nervous kids out of being scared of the hills. And that the sun glinting off the shiny strands of her hair gives her a beautiful, halo-like aura.

Also maybe a little bit that Betty’s ski suit is a very tight purple and pink lycra that shows off her curves in such a fantastic way that Jughead finds himself completely incapable of being immune to her charm and infectious laugh.

He _might_ be smitten.

Archie can still go to hell, though.

* * *

Once Betty and her co-instructor have unleashed the shrieking hellions back to their parents, she swooshes over to Jughead on her skis and grins sympathetically at him. “How are you holding up, Jughead?”

It’s hard to match her enthusiasm when he can’t really feel his toes and he still hasn’t finished his mental list of “101 Ways to Get Back at Archie for This,” but Jughead tries his best not to be a complete asshole to Betty.

After all, it’s not _her_ fault that their respective best friends took to each other like moths to a flame and ditched them to go flirt in the great outdoors. In all likelihood Betty’s vacation is just as ruined as Jughead’s, so they may as well commiserate together. As long as said commiseration takes place firmly indoors.

“I’ll be better once I have coffee and those waffles I was promised. And something sharper than a butter knife to stab Archie with once he gets back from trying to woo your friend,” he grumbles.

Her answering giggles thaw his mood a bit more. “I generally don’t aid and abet attempted murderers, but I can definitely help on the coffee and waffles front. If you don’t mind the company, I can meet you in the lobby by the rentals window after I go clock out?”

She does this a lot he’s noticed, always phrasing her presence as an option. Jughead has known her for all of 36 hours and every time they’ve been in a room together, Betty attempts to be as unobtrusive as possible. Maybe it’s his sullen demeanor or maybe it’s just her personality, but it does a good job of making him feel guilty for coming off like an ass the first night at the lodge, when it became clear that Veronica and Betty (or, at the very least, Veronica) were going to be a fixture on this trip.

In his very minimal defense, after driving three hours through a snowstorm in his beat up, half-dead Jeep while Archie _napped,_ Jughead was already in a terrible mood when they checked into Lodge-Lodge; by the time their dinner at the bar was interrupted by Archie starting to flirt with the brunette a few seats down from them, and Archie had excitedly said over his shoulder, “Hey Jug, Ronnie and Betty just offered to keep us company this week,” Jughead was in, as his sister lovingly calls it, full grouch mode.

Whatever his sarcastic, and likely rude, response to that was, he has the feeling it left a poor impression on Betty, since she keeps giving him an out to everything. That morning, after Jughead’s eyebrows had gone sky high at her mention of skiing class, she’d started to backtrack until Archie had pulled an Archie and bullied-slash-guilted him into it.

The least Jughead can do is have brunch with the girl.  

“Sure,” he tells her. “I’ll see you in a few.”

Her ponytail bobs as she nods at him happily before swooshing back off in what he assumes is the direction of the employee lounge. Jughead, on the other hand, half slides, half Tin Man walks back to the rental shed. A bored teenager wearing a beanie with a beer logo stitched on it helps him break free of the skis before returning Jughead’s license to him as collateral.

The guy who had taken it from him earlier hadn’t even blinked at Jughead’s full name, only solidifying Jughead’s assumption that this place’s clientele were disgustingly wealthy and deserving of absurd names with Roman numerals attached to them.

He winces when the receipt follows his ID and reluctantly hands over his debit card.

This was the other reason he didn’t want to actually ski while they’re at a ski lodge—this shit is _expensive._ Archie had only been successful in convincing Jughead of this trip because he’d found the offer on Groupon; half off a five-day, all-inclusive stay at a nice ski lodge, split between the two of them if they shared a room, was a dent in Jughead's savings for sure, but not an astronomical one. And it had the added bonus of not spending more time on his mom’s couch, feeling like an imposition, and watching Jellybean pretend she wasn’t upset that their dad hadn’t shown up for Christmas like promised.

But still. Eighty bucks to be reminded that some kids grow up in families that can afford not only season lift passes, but also custom skis and jackets was not Jughead’s idea of a good time.

Unlimited Belgian waffles in the company of a perfectly friendly (and very cute) blonde, on the other hand…

He’d make do.

* * *

 

Once the heavy rented helmet is off and his own beanie is securely back on his head, Jughead trudges back inside and sighs in relief at the smell of food wafting down the hall from the dining area. He’s tempted to beeline right for it, but instead plops himself in an armchair by the doorway and checks his phone while waiting for Betty.

(The voice in the back of his head telling him to _be nice, you need more friends_ sounds annoyingly like his sister, but it’s right just the same. She’d have a field day if she ever found out his subconscious takes after her.)

There’s a text from Jellybean that’s just a photo of the family sheepdog sleeping on a pile of Jughead’s clothes, three emails—one each from his thesis advisor and his academic advisor that he skims quickly to take note of anything important, and one from his dad that he steadfastly ignores—and one notification that Archie has tagged him in a photo on Instagram.

Given that Jughead both hates being in photos and is unaware of any photos Archie’s taken in the last two days, he’s wary of opening the barely-used app. He’s only ever posted a handful of photos of Hot Dog, one with Jellybean on his shoulders, and one of a spectacular burger. It used to be his main method of keeping up with Jellybean before their mom finally “settled” in Toledo, had enough money to get Jelly her own phone, and allowed Jughead to come visit during school breaks. Before that it was sporadic phone calls that Gladys monitored and clandestine messaging via the app while Jughead was on the Andrews’ couch, avoiding his dad’s trailer, and wishing he weren’t a charity case.

He hates the damn thing, but keeps it on his phone anyway. A masochistic reminder of how much worse things used to be, as it were.

Archie, however, _loves_ using his account. There are photos of the Andrews family dog, Archie and all his college buddies, Archie and his buddies from the Riverdale High football team, shitty lattes from his college’s dining hall, Archie and his girl of the moment at theme parties, Archie doing anything and everything athletic, a singular photo of Archie and him at high school graduation. It’s wholesome, almost, how much Archie enjoys his life and wants to share it with the internet at large. Wholesome, and annoying as hell.

Especially when the latest post of enjoyment is a series of photos that includes Jughead passed out on the couch in their shared room at the lodge, an exterior photo of the lodge itself, a shot of the mountain from the ski lift, and a selfie of Archie and Veronica on the ski lift. Veronica is kissing his cheek, which means it’s only about to get more insufferable for the remainder of the trip.

Jughead bemoans the update with Betty, who appears behind his shoulder as he’s flipping through the photos.

“Oh god,” she groans. “They’re going to be impossible, aren’t they?”

When she perches on the arm of the chair to lean closer to Jughead and look at his phone, he gets a whiff of something familiar.

“Did you have coffee _without me?”_ he asks, playfully adopting a scandalized tone. Jellybean would be proud.  

“Whoops,” Betty laughs. “They had a fresh pot in the instructors’ lounge. I should have brought you with me, but then we wouldn’t have the intel that our friends are about to be completely obnoxious for the rest of this week.” She nudges his shoulder and it’s then he notices she’s exchanged her pink ski suit for a pair of sweatpants embroidered with VERMONT SKI TEAM and a plain shirt under her pea coat.

(Probably for the best, he thinks. Squinting into the sun made for a good cover when he was trying to not be a creep outside, but sitting across from her at a table might have been too much for him and his oft-neglected hormones.)

Betty nods her head in the direction of the dining hall and Jughead jumps to attention. Food, he tells himself. Food is the priority and not the pretty girl who doesn’t seem repelled by his very presence.

“So is it always like this with Veronica?”

“Um, well.” She looks hesitant to say anything negative toward her friend which, after a lifetime of trailing Archie Andrews, Jughead gets.

“I’m just curious,” he placates. “Archie is easily distracted so I’ve dealt with this my entire life. Wasn’t sure if it was the same for you.”

Her shoulders relax a little and she smiles softly at him. It’s a nice smile. A little more genuine than the one she was using outside, if he’s paid attention correctly. “Only since the end of high school, so not quite as long as you. Her family moved up here to buy this place our junior year and we’ve been glued at the hip ever since. Well,” she amends, “only when she’s not _distracted_ and glued to someone else’s hip.”

Jughead considers answering her with an uncharacteristically forward, _You can glue yourself to mine if you want_ , but swallows his tongue at the idea of how mortifying it would be to say that out loud and busies himself with seeking out the line for fresh waffles. If he’s going to spend the majority of the next few days around her, he’d rather avoid tipping his hand this early that he is socially illiterate and prone to stumbling over his own words unless he writes them out first.

By the time he’s loaded his plate and secured enough coffee to erase the morning’s ski lesson from his mind, Betty is already halfway through her plate of eggs and toast. She looks up as he approaches and does a sort of half-wave with the hand holding her coffee, which results in some of the liquid sloshing over the sides and onto her sleeve.

He hears her curse quietly and go bright red, and finds some comfort in the fact that maybe he’s not alone with the social insecurities.

“Here,” he offers her napkins and sits down to take several large swigs of his own coffee, giving them both a few moments to collect themselves.

Betty picks at her toast while Jughead shovels food into his mouth, but she breaks the silence first. “So if you don’t know how to ski, what exactly were you planning to do all week?”

There’s nothing accusatory in her tone, but Jughead still bristles at the question. He’s hyper aware of his blue collar upbringing in places like this—where wealth is not just a given, but thrown about casually. She _has_ to know that his lack of skiing ability comes from having neither the interest, nor the funds to learn when he was the age of all the kids in her class this morning.

He swallows too much coffee in his haste to buy time and ends up spluttering when it goes down his windpipe. If Betty spots his avoidance, she says nothing, only widening her eyes in concern and passing him her water bottle.  

“I, uh,” Jughead coughs once more to clear his throat and only accepts her water because he knows his face must be flaming red by now. “I was mostly going to do homework. I have a year-long thesis so no rest for the weary between semesters.”

“I’m in the same boat,” she chirps, looking considerably more engaged than before. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, uh,” he flounders. No one outside of the liberal arts department at his school has really _asked_ him about his project. His mother waved him off with a “That’s nice, Jug” when he brought it up at Christmas and though Jelly tried to listen, he knew it was going over her head. Archie just blinks at him when he starts talking school, so Jughead has learned to not bring it up. “I’m writing about the evolution of American lit's portrayal of poverty from the Depression era through now.”

If she looked excited before, Betty is positively _alight_ now. “That’s awesome! What texts are you looking at?”

Through the course of Jughead’s second servings of food, they talk about Jughead’s project and even get into Betty’s—she’s also a senior, he discovers, but out at UC Berkeley, and is working on the proto-feminist implications of Jane Austen’s repertoire. Their conversation goes on for so long that the kitchen staff has to ask them to move so they can finish cleaning before lunch, but Jughead feels like he could keep talking to her for hours.

If this is the result of Archie going girl crazy on their trip, Jughead might not be mad about it anymore.

As they’re about to go their separate ways, Betty to her room upstairs and Jughead to their smaller, cheaper room in one of the satellite buildings, Jughead voices a curiosity to her. “How come you aren’t out on the mountain if you’re so gung-ho on skiing?”

She looks confused until he glances down to her sweatpants and continues, “Obviously you’re good enough to actually enjoy this if you can teach it. And you also must have had plans for the week before Veronica and Archie distracted each other.”

Betty’s cheeks are pink again, but her tone is unreadable when she answers him. “Oh, these are my sister’s. She’s on the state team, not me. I’m not ...I don’t actually center my life around skiing. I’m not half bad and it’s good money to teach on the side. It’s never really been fun for me, not like it is for my sister or for Ronnie.” Her voice softens around Veronica’s name and she seems to shake herself out of wherever her mind just ran off to.

Nonplussed, Jughead just nods.

“Besides,” she grins. “Just because something is technically a huge part of your life doesn’t mean it defines you, you know?”

Boy, does he ever.

They say their goodbyes and Jughead is halfway out the door when Betty calls after him. “Do you want to meet me back here in a couple hours to do work together? Thesis study date?”

He’s pretty sure his heart is in his throat, so he only nods his agreement for fear of what would happen if he tries to speak.

It’s no matter, because Betty smiles, turns pink, and walks off with a wave. 

Jughead has definitely had worse vacations. 

 

 

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever possessed Betty to use the phrase “study date” when asking the cute friend of Veronica’s new boy-toy to hang out had better keep itself around because unless she can maintain that level of confidence for the next four days, she is going to die of embarrassment. 

_ Study date.  _ God, she sounds like Veronica making plans for a Netflix and chill night. 

Truly, she had meant only to see if he minded having her sit in silence in a neighboring armchair while they worked on their respective projects. Betty’s glad to know she isn’t the only tortured soul doing classwork over her senior winter break, that someone else felt the idiotic drive to write upwards of 50,000 words on a subject they couldn’t get out of their head. That same someone who was also an unwitting best friend to a happy-go-lucky free spirit. 

At the very least, given their startlingly similar circumstances, Betty and Jughead were kindred spirits. 

But beneath prickly, sarcastic exterior, Jughead is charming in his own way. And maybe it’s the floppy hair and his sharp cheekbones—it’s more than a little bit of his sheepish smile  and his poor attempts at pretending he wasn’t staring at her legs—but Betty is intrigued. 

She had made the mistake of casually mentioning to Veronica that the _hot redhead’s_ brunette friend was also pretty cute after her third glass of prosecco that night and Veronica squealed in delight. 

“Oh my  _ god,  _ we have to get you laid on this trip now! Mr. Outlander is an enormous flirt so he and I will be just fine, and that gives me plenty of time to gather intel on tall, dark, and broody for you. This is  _ perfect!”  _ It was decidedly  _ not  _ perfect, seeing as Betty neither wanted Veronica meddling in her barely-existent love life, nor had she packed anything close to something she’d want a boy to see her mostly naked in. 

Still, though, Jughead suffered through her kiddie ski lesson at eight in the morning and even spent time with her after so it doesn’t seem like as much as an impossibility as it had when she’d gotten a surly, “Oh goodie,” in lieu of a hello upon first introduction. 

Plus—he talks literature.  _ Intelligently.  _

To borrow a phrase from Veronica, that significantly upped his hotness factor. 

* * *

What does one  _ wear  _ on a study date?

Truth be told, Betty intended to spend most of this week in her pajamas, a luxury she had sorely missed after three weeks at home. 

(“Look presentable, Elizabeth! Wear something more flattering Elizabeth! Betty, darling, you’ve eaten an awful lot of Christmas cookies, why don’t you head up the mountain with Polly and Chic for some training runs this morning?”)

All she has are leggings, a couple of oversized sweaters, one Veronica-approved “smokeshow” outfit for the New Year’s Eve party, her ski clothes, and Polly’s sweats that she already has on. Comfortable and warm as they may be, Betty now seriously regrets wearing them because the  _ last  _ thing she’d intended was to end a conversation with a boy she might like by awkwardly dancing around an explanation of her family politics. 

He’d taken her evasion at face value though, even so far as to make a sort of face that told Betty he knew exactly what she meant—shouldered family legacies and all. 

Frustrated that she’s let her mother get the best of her simply by thinking she looks like too much of a slob to be seen by a cute guy, Betty kicks off the ski team sweats and uses her toe to fling them across the room. 

They’re  _ up a mountain  _ and Alice Cooper can still infiltrate her psyche so precisely that she may as well be standing behind Betty’s figure in the mirror. Betty may be out at school for months at a time—on a different goddamn side of the country for that matter—but it only ever takes a few minutes on the phone or less than an hour back in her childhood home for her to feel like she’s an anxious fourteen-year-old being forced into a picture-perfect, ski-racing mold by her mother. 

She’s flopped on her bed, staring at the ceiling and debating the merits of asking Veronica for advice, when Betty realizes how absurd she’s being. 

Jughead was planning to sit in a room by himself and do homework all week.  _ She  _ was planning to sit in a room by herself and do homework all week. What she wears to sit and do homework five feet away from him does not matter in the slightest. 

( _ But,  _ singsongs the Veronica-esque voice in the back of her head.  _ It can’t hurt to put in some effort if you think you may want him to want to see you mostly naked. _ ) 

After a shower to calm her nerves and thirty minutes on the phone while wearing a fluffy Lodge-Lodge embroidered robe—Val, another senior thesis student working with the same advisor, is in her own kind of spiral about a vague comment on her latest draft—Betty feels more settled. 

She chooses to put on fleece leggings and a large, white scoop-neck sweater which is an outfit that would likely disappoint both her mother  _ and _ Veronica, but that is immensely comfortable. Even if, upon looking in the mirror, Betty looks a bit like a marshmallow. 

It’s fine, she decides. She’s now watched Jughead eat two meals; he definitely likes foods of all kinds, marshmallows probably included. 

* * *

Only after Betty lugs her laptop, stack of library books, two legal pads of notes, and journal down to Lodge-Lodge’s main lounge does she realize that she’d asked Jughead to hang out in a  _ few hours  _ and therefore she is, as Coopers often are, quite early.

It’s no matter, truly, because her anxiety over being caught just sitting and waiting for him to show up forces her into a productive working mode. She curls her feet under herself, positions the chair to get the perfect amount of heat from the fireplace, and digs into it. What feels like a few moments skimming her handwritten outline and humming along to her study playlist did, in fact, turn into a couple hours because the next thing she knows, Jughead is waving his hand in her periphery to get her attention. 

She jumps, somewhat startled, and bites her lip, hoping that he had not heard her singing under her breath to her music. 

Something about him strikes her as the type to be skeptical, if not entirely judgemental, of top 40 music. Betty is staunchly defensive of all her life choices—you have to be, growing up in the Cooper household while defying your parents every expectation, and not in the good way—but she doesn’t want to lose any rapport she’s building with Jughead because she listens to the exact kind of bubblegum pop music a blonde girl who wears pink looks like she’d listen to. 

Given his own apparent discomfort at having interrupted her, Betty needn’t have worried about putting off Jughead because he looks like he could bolt at any moment. 

“Sorry, sorry, go ahead and keep listening if you’re in the zone. I didn’t want to freak you out if you looked up in ten minutes and I had magically moved in three feet away. But if you’d rather just stay solo and keep going, I can head back to mine and Archie’s room—” 

He pauses, presumably to catch his breath and continue rushing through apologies or excuses, so Betty takes the opportunity to cut him off. 

“It’s okay! Jughead, seriously, sit down. I’m the one who invited you to do work with me, remember?” 

The look of hesitation tells her that he’s not convinced.  _ Honestly,  _ she wants to huff. He’s cute and he likes to talk about books, this boy does not need to second-guess her interest in spending time with him. Betty reaches forward to grasp his forearm where it’s resting against the band of his messenger bag and tugs him gently in her direction. 

His rapid blinks of surprise are endearing. 

Betty uses the pen in her other hand to gesture at the chair next to her, facing the fireplace. “Sit,” she tells him. He sits. His somewhat shell-shocked gaze falls to her painted nails circling his wrist and she releases him, feeling her cheeks go warm. 

A few beats of awkward silence go by while Jughead pulls out his own things and Betty gnaws on the end of her pen. She’s grateful when he breaks it, and they settle back into the easy discussion from earlier that day. 

“Seems like you might have made some good progress,” he says, rifling through pages of a brick-sized anthology. 

“Some!” 

“Don’t stop on my account.” 

He has a point, Betty realizes, but she also wants to talk with him some more. Despite the entire premise of this being a  _ study date,  _ emphasis on the  _ study.  _

(The Veronica voice pipes up again with an oh-so-helpful,  _ Or you can study each other instead.  _ It’s a blessing the girl herself is still on the slopes, or Betty would likely be subject to more flagrantly lewd comments out loud.) 

“I’m alright,” Betty says instead. “I’m happy to take a break unless you want to get going on yours.” 

He lets the anthology flop closed with a muffled thump. 

“I spent the last hour and a half staring at the ceiling and thinking about Kerouac. For the good of my sanity and the sanity of everyone around me, a break is probably for the best.” 

Betty glances around the common area. “Well, there’s every kind of high end tabletop game, or we can go to one of the tvs, or I can teach you more skiing basics—” Jughead snorts in laughter at this, “—or we can see how many more photos of each other Archie and Veronica have posted since before breakfast.” 

Jughead’s eyes sparkle, clearly on board with her mischievous idea of a distraction. “Well I already saw at least one more from Archie because he refuses to take me out of a group text of a bunch of kids from our hometown, despite the fact that I haven’t spoken two words to anybody but him since graduation.” 

“V is the same way,” Betty rolls her eyes. 

“I’m the same way about what, Bettykins?” 

Veronica herself appears, looking more fabulous and put together after a day of skiing than Betty ever has even with hours of effort, and flicks the end of Betty’s ponytail to punctuate her question. Slung around her shoulders is a purple cashmere scarf and the arms of Archie, who  _ does  _ look like he spent the entire morning skiing and whose eyes are glancing curiously between Betty and Jughead. 

Betty hears a muttered  _ Speak of the devil _ from Jughead, but hides her smirk by directing a more cheerful smile to her best friend. “Just that you both have a penchant for running off and leaving your poor, bookworm friends alone inside all day. We’ve formed a support group.” 

“Oh, please,” Archie snorts. “Being alone inside all day with books is Jughead’s preferred state of being.” 

A catlike grin crosses Veronica’s face and Betty knows an embarrassing comment is coming before her friend even opens her mouth. “Well I suppose my darling Betty is a vast improvement upon that state of being. You two look very cozy, and not at all alone.” 

To his credit, Jughead maintains eye contact with Veronica even after her pointed eyebrow raise, though he rubs at the back of his neck and Betty can see that the tops of his ears are red. 

Archie jumps in then, and Betty finds herself warming to his people-pleasing nature. Another kind of kindred spirit. “Well, I for one am glad you’re keeping each other company. I thought I was going to be responsible for keeping Jug from going full Shining while we were here. Ronnie and I were actually talking about all of us going out for dinner together later!” 

Jughead asks the question Betty’s thinking. “Why exactly would we go  _ out  _ for dinner when there is a fantastic kitchen here that we’ve already paid for?” 

She gets the sense spending additional money might be a sore point for Jughead. Going out for a night on the town with Veronica could easily rack up to what Betty just made teaching that morning and while Veronica will offer to pay like always, she doubts that would make the situation any better. 

“Yeah, Veronica, you know I didn’t pack for anything outside of the lodge and I’m not up for something fancy.” 

Her best friend pouts, the frown exaggerated by the purplish hue of her lipstick—picked specifically to match the scarf, Betty knows. “Well aren't you two just a couple of bookwormy killjoys.” 

Sensing trouble across the board, Betty braces herself for incoming awkwardness, but Archie swoops in with a save. “Well, let’s all eat here, and then go into town for a couple rounds of drinks after?” 

Jughead groans, but she can tell it’s exaggerated. “Arch, twenty-two years of friendship and you’ve yet to turn me into a social butterfly. This counts as next semester’s  _ just one night, Jug _ night, okay?” 

Veronica claps her hands. “Excellent! It’s a date! Boys, we’ll see you down here at seven sharp. Betty, let’s go primp.”

“Oh,” Betty’s startled by the conversation circling back to her so quickly. She is curious to hear about Veronica’s day with Archie, and to raid her friend’s wardrobe, but Jughead only just got here. And if she’s not mistaken, she can feel his eyes on her, waiting for her to answer. “I’m actually going to get some more thesis work done down here. I’ll come up once you’ve showered?” 

There’s another deliberate arch of Veronica’s eyebrow at Betty and then at Jughead. “Alright, then, B. I’ll see you soon.” Her unspoken  _ We will be talking about this later  _ is very loud. She’s off in a flounce of white, gold, and purple, leaving the three of them in her wake. 

“You coming back to the room, Jug?” Archie asks. 

Similar to her and Veronica, Betty can see a silent conversation happening between the two of them. “I just got here and do not need to watch you manscape. I’ll come back sometime before dinner.” 

“Okay, man, suit yourself.” 

As quickly as they hurricaned in, their friends were gone. 

Jughead clears his throat. 

“Well that was certainly a directional change from Kerouac. Guess we should resume this study date now, huh?” 

* * *

They work on and off for the afternoon, Betty spending more time than she’d like to admit sneaking covert glances at Jughead.

(He looks even more attractive when deep in thought, his brow furrowed in concentration while he scribbles notes and fiddles with the pointed hem of his beanie. Betty almost misses the look of his messy unkempt hair—that she definitely  _ has not  _ thought about running her hands through—but the hat suits him well, rounding out his personality with a little dash of quirkiness.) 

He catches her in a stare a couple times before grinning to ask, “Do I have something on my face?” 

The look on his face, bewildered but a little smug, gives away that he knows he doesn’t and Betty wants to die on the spot. He takes pity, though, and carries on without addressing her blatant ogling. “So Berkeley, huh? What made you go so far away from home if you grew up on a ski mountain?” 

Ah, well. Here we go, Betty sighs internally. 

“Question of the century, Jug,” she says. “The short answer is that I wanted to go anywhere that  _ didn’t  _ have a place to ski.” 

Jughead places his laptop on the coffee table and leans toward her, giving her his full attention. “And the long answer?” 

That he seems genuinely interested in the story—in  _ her _ —makes Betty giddy. Even if the story itself reveals the decidedly unattractive part of Betty’s life. 

“My brother, sister, and I all grew up with ski lessons and teams and the whole shebang. My parents wanted us to be good at something, like  _ really  _ good so they pushed all three of us into racing. And we all were really good. My brother Chic made the national team and is probably tracked to make the Olympics if he wants too, Polly was ranked in college and probably isn’t far behind, and I just ...hated it all. I wanted to get out from my parents’ thumb and do something for myself. So I applied to schools out West and in the South without telling them.” 

Jughead lets out a low whistle. “And I’m sure that went over well.” 

“Oh, spectacularly,” Betty snorts. “I thought my mother was going to chain me to my bed, she was so pissed off when she found out I put the deposit down on Berkeley with my own money. Every time I came home for breaks, she would spend the whole time trying to bully me into transferring to a school back home. Sophomore year, I finally got fed up and stayed here with Veronica for all of Christmas and told my mom I wouldn’t come home again if she kept it up.” 

“Damn. That’s impressive as shit, Betty. Your parents do not sound like people who are told no often.” 

She grins because he’s  _ right.  _ It’s such a point of pride for her that she stood her ground and forged her own path. Even if the nasty, Alice Cooper voice in her head is too ingrained for Betty to be fully free of its influence. “They’re not.” 

Betty inexplicably wants to tell him more; his presence has instilled such a trust that she feels comfortable enough to tell him about Alice threatening to commit her so she couldn’t leave for school, or how Chic, the forever favorite for always following Alice’s orders, flew out to California to drag Betty back home, or any of the other dozen insane things her parents have pulled over the years. 

The chance to doesn’t arrive though, since the moment is cut short by a stream of text messages from Veronica, all of which contain a variation of, “Come upstairs  _ now _ , B.” 

“I’m being beckoned,” Betty says. She thinks she can see a flicker of disappointment in Jughead’s eyes, and she feels her own disappointment apparent on her face too. “To be continued?” 

Jughead smiles at her, and it warms Betty all the way to her toes. “Looking forward to it, Betts. I’ll see you at dinner.” 

Betty packs up her things and moves toward the staircase, unable to wipe the smile from her own face. For the first time in her entire friendship with Veronica, she’s never been so happy for her friend’s boy-crazy tendencies.

 

_ tbc _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, I am so blown away by all the love and positivity for this wintry brain child of mine. I hope this chapter lives up to the hype and that my unexpected bout of inspiration carries all the way through what I have planned. 
> 
> as always, please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

“Yo, Jug,” shouts Archie from the shower when Jughead returns from the lounge. He’d been on a roll with his work but after Betty left, the appeal of staying in the lodge’s common area decreased rapidly.

“What?”

He dumps his American Lit anthology onto his bed, the one closest to the window, and follows suit once his laptop is safely back in its padded case. (The thing may be a secondhand piece of crap but it’s a secondhand piece of crap that he does _not_ have the money to replace before graduation.) He’s face first in his pillow, thinking about the shy smile Betty gave him after telling him about her family, answering a question that he would have shied away from if he were in her position.

Perhaps, though, if she does ask him about his own life later, he’d answer honestly. She has such a warm, understanding nature about her that Jughead wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable explaining that he spent half his childhood under the care of Fred Andrews, who was more of a parent to Jughead than his actual parents.

“I’ve got a box of condoms in my backpack if you need to snag some.”

“ _What?”_

Jughead sits straight up, whipping his head around to stare in the direction of Archie’s disembodied voice.

His best friend’s head pops out of the bathroom door and connects to his voice, droplets of water flying everywhere as he gestures. “I dunno, man, you and Veronica’s friend seemed to hit it off, it’s not like you’re ever willingly social. We’re on vacation, might as well.”

All he can do is gape. Archie is _Archie_ so Jughead has heard more than his fair share of his friend’s history with girls, whether he wanted to or not, but it has never been a two-way street; even if Jughead had much to talk about, he certainly wouldn’t want to open himself up to letting Archie dissect his choices.

“Or not, Jug, whatever. Figured I’d mention it,” Archie shrugs before disappearing back into the bathroom. He keeps talking from in there, likely to avoid Jughead chucking anything in his direction, now that Jughead realizes he's gripping the anthology like he wants to launch it across the room. “But just in case, they’re in the front zipper pocket.”

Not entirely sure what to do with this information, or with the unsettling realization that maybe he _does_ want to know this information, Jughead stays silent and just faceplants back onto the bed.

Betty _is_ gorgeous and Jughead _does_ like her, but he doesn’t want to presume anything, nor does he want to end up in an extremely painful situation where he’s mistaken her sweet personality for a vested interest and have to fling himself down the mountain. He does not at all have Archie’s level of interest, skill, or follow-through with girls and has lived his relatively solo lifestyle with very little regret, save for the one terribly awkward date with Ethel Muggs in high school that he thought was a friendly outing but Ethel thought was her big chance to seduce him. The night ended with Ethel in tears and Jughead wanting to flee town, never to date again.

(He’s dated _some_ in college, lest he become a complete hermit incapable of human interaction, but he’s never initiated things; he’d lost his virginity simply because he figured he should eventually, but the whole Archie-style, try them all until you find the one type of dating is just—it’s not his thing.)

Betty, though? Betty he wants to take on a date.

And if that means taking a page of out the Archie Andrews manual by putting on a shirt he didn’t sleep in and going for drinks at a bougie bar in a ski town, then so be it. From what Jughead can tell so far, Betty is worth it.

* * *

After an excruciating dinner of watching Archie and Veronica shamelessly flirt at each other from across the faux-rustic dining table, Jughead is starting to regret his decision to indulge Archie. To her credit, Betty seems just as over it as he is, but she is better practiced at concealing her frustration.

She even takes it onto herself to—gently—kick Jughead in the shin when his scoffs become too heavy-handed.

(Honestly, though, if he has to hear Archie describe his musical style as anything other than “emo heartthrob problems,” Jughead may lose it. He loves his friend, but the guy could do to branch out in his songwriting tendencies.)

After her kick, Jughead reins in his eyerolls, choosing instead to nudge Betty’s foot with his own each time their friends say something absurd.

“Music must be an incredible way to express yourself.” _Nudge._

She looks up in surprise the first time in happens, obviously assuming it wasn’t intentional, and then Jughead keeps going. A pink flush is crawling its way up Betty’s neck with each touch, despite the multiple layers of boot, sock, and jeans between them, and it’s an unexpected delight.

“I loved playing sports but it felt like too much of a commitment in college once I realized I wanted to spend more time on my music. I still hit the gym regularly, though.” Quickly followed by, “Time well spent, Archiekins.” _Nudge-nudge._

“I’ll probably jetset after graduation, but I could be convinced to stay stateside for the right reasons. Or person.” _Nudge._ And eyebrow raise, on both sides, because even Betty seems surprised by Veronica’s straightforward mention of this trip’s exploits having a potential _after._

Betty and Jughead do at least carry on their own conversations, and the group trades choice high school stories, but Jughead finds himself wishing the evening more closely resembled his afternoon with Betty. He worries that more and more time spent as Archie’s perpetual, sullen shadow in her company will only serve to decrease both his confidence and her interest.

It’s not that he meanto revert back to his high school habits of letting Archie shine as the outgoing golden boy; it's just that Jughead’s buried feelings of inadequacy are bubbling back to the surface to bite him in the ass now that he’s met a girl he might be—definitely—interested in. Veronica’s interrogative questions are not helping either.

He feels like he is on trial for something he hasn’t even done yet.

A half-hearted voice in the back of his mind hopes her intensity is a protectiveness over Betty, and since Jughead is known to be the least intimidating person in the room at any given time— _thank you_ , wearable security blanket and general distaste for small talk—that means Betty must have indicated some amount of reciprocal interest to merit Veronica’s mama bear act.

After an entire adolescence of disappointments, Jughead knows not to get his hopes up. But as Veronica leads their group to her _town car_ and Betty falls back a few paces to loop her arm through his, Jughead hears that voice raise a few decibels.

* * *

 “So,” Betty says, taking her vodka soda from Jughead as he slides onto the stool next to her. “Over-under on how long until Veronica and Archie ditch us to go back to the lodge and have sex?”

Jughead chokes on his sip of beer and Betty giggles.

“Veronica gets handsy when she drinks gin,” she explains.

“Ah.” Jughead doesn’t have a follow up to that, except the fleeting wish that Betty is the same when she drinks vodka.

Betty carries on, oblivious to his less than honorable thoughts. “I’m guessing no more than two rounds of drinks."

“No more than two rounds until what?”

God, he wishes Veronica would stop appearing out of nowhere in the middle of his conversations with Betty. He answers this time, but it’s a clumsy save. “Until I’m unable to bite my tongue about the decor of this bar.”

His point stands true, to be fair. Given the small-town vibe and the fact that the mountain is at least an hour’s drive away from any major city in Vermont, Jughead had expected whatever bar they landed in to be something like the bars in Riverdale: dive-y, poorly lit, and full of townies playing darts or pool. This place, though, could be straight out of upper Manhattan if he didn’t know any better.

It’s dimly lit, but with blue-tinted bulbs, all the tables are marble high tops with stools so oddly shaped Jughead barely knew how sit on one at first. There isn’t a bar game in sight. All the bottles behind the crystalline bar are top-shelf, regardless of the shelf height, and Jughead had been so overwhelmed by the tap list that he gave up and asked the bartender to give him the cheapest IPA they had.

That had earned him a scoff, but he didn’t give a damn. Thankfully, Betty’s order was simple as opposed to Veronica’s gin martini with, which was why he made it back to their table before Archie and Veronica did. It was served with multi-colored stirring straws that he thinks might have sparkles in them, though.

“You’re a buzzkill, beanie boy,” Veronica quips, gesturing at him with her speared olive.

“We’re literally in a ski town where every single person is also wearing a hat, and I go by a ridiculous nickname. How is _that_ the thing you’re electing to roast me about?”

“Leave Jug alone, V,” Betty says. She reaches up to run her thumb across the worn material of his hat and her fingers trail lightly down the back of his neck before she seems to realize her action and snatches her hand away. “I like his beanie.”

Between her fingers against his skin and her compliment, Jughead is too hot under the collar to bear, so he clutches at his beer and takes a long drink just to give himself something to do. Betty drums her fingers lightly on the table, pink nails clicking softly, and Jughead would give anything to have them on him again, be it his neck or his hair, or his own hands. He takes another sip of beer.

“Whatever you say, B. So, boys. How long exactly are you guests of Lodge-Lodge for? At least through our annual New Year’s Eve Bash, I hope?”

Archie nods. “Yup, we’re booked through New Year’s Day and then we go back to Riverdale until the semester starts. We’re stoked for the New Year’s party, right Jug?” Jughead wants to roll his eyes, but Archie is giving him pleading puppydog eyes that clearly say, _Please don’t make a crack about how arbitrary a holiday New Year’s is,_ so he fakes a smile and nods in agreement. 

“Oh good!” Veronica claps her hands. “I already had enough trouble convincing this one—” she gestures to Betty—“to pack something festive and agree to be dragged, glad I don’t have to talk you two into it. It’s a spectacular time! Passed hors d'oeuvres, champagne all night, the best DJ flown in out of New York City and Daddy even rigs our own version of the ball drop off the top of the ski lift. Plus _,”_ Veronica turns to Jughead with a mischievous look in her eye. “Archie and I will dancing the night away, so you and your beanie will need to keep Betty company.”

Jughead holds up his hands in surrender. “You had me at passed hors d'oeuvres.”

Under the table, Betty knocks his knee with her own to get his attention. When he looks over to her, she’s smiling softly. “I won’t even make you color coordinate with me.”

He snorts.

“Oh, yes, Archie that reminds me!” Veronica spins away from Jughead, clearly satisfied enough to move on. “I’ll be wearing gold, so if you need a proper tie, I’ll have Smithers pick something up for you from the haberdashery in town.”

Archie, though looking like he may have underestimated his situation, just agrees good-naturedly.

This time it’s Betty who rolls her eyes. When she sees that Jughead’s caught her, she merely shrugs and sips from the sparkly straw in her drink.

* * *

 Jughead is on his second beer and Betty just taking the first sip of her third vodka soda when they realize they’re alone at the bar, their friends nowhere to be seen.

“I win,” Betty asserts after Jughead calls her attention to this fact.

“We didn’t officially bet on anything, though.”

With color high on her cheeks that Jughead’s sure isn’t from her drink alone, Betty winks at him. “Guess the prize for both of us is that you get to walk me home after this drink.”

Feeling uncharacteristically bold, and bolstered by Betty’s dialed-up flirting, Jughead puts his hand on her knee (and hopes that she can’t tell through her jeans that his hands are sweaty from nerves). Looking shy, her hand moves toward his where it rests and Jughead’s heart drops a bit, thinking he’s gone too far and she’s going to push him away.

Instead, she intertwines their fingers and rubs circles on the back of his hand, much like she had earlier with his hat.

“Guess you should finish up,” he says softly.

Everything about this girl fascinates him; how she flirts hard while blushing even harder, that she chose her own life despite what her family pushed her to do, that she loves Jane Austen and arguing literature, that she hasn’t been scared off by his defense-by-way-of-sarcasm, how she’s still holding his hand as she swallows the rest of her drink in two gulps.

Betty is a beautiful mess of contradictions and Jughead wants to kiss her so badly.

He helps her into her coat before settling his tab, fending off Betty’s protests to go dutch. “Come on,” he groans, teasing. “At least let me try to be chivalrous.” She relents, and they continue to hold hands as they leave. 

The ride down by town car was so short it rendered the drive practically useless, but the distance still gives him and Betty enough time to meander up the foot of the mountain slowly. “I never get tired of how beautiful it is here,” Betty says. She pauses to look up at the stars that are glittering extra with the light snow that’s started to fall. “Don’t get me wrong, I love California and I’m so glad I moved out there. But it’s beautiful in a different way.”

“It’s the silence,” Jughead supplies. Betty glances over to him. “I think it’s something about how quiet everything is when it snows. Like the world outside is just white noise and we’re in our own moment, to live it ourselves.”

If he’s not mistaken, Betty’s eyes start to glisten with tears.

“Shit,” he whispers, moving in to wipe away the ones that fell before Betty could lift her eye in an effort to prevent them. “I’m sorry.”

“God, no,” Betty laughs. “ _I’m_ sorry. I don’t know what I’m crying for. We’re just talking about _snow._ ”

“I’m told I have a bad habit of being melodramatic when talking about perfectly mundane things. Not exactly the move I want to pull when I’m already failing to be smooth.”

“I don’t know,” Betty hums. “I’d say you’re pulling off smooth pretty well.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m holding your hand aren’t I?” Betty lifts his hand where it’s joined with her gloved one, as though he needs the reminder.

“You could just be cold,” Jughead counters. They both know he’s teasing but Jughead is enjoying the back and forth.

“I have gloves on.” 

"Touché."

He’s disappointed when they reach the front door of the main building and Betty makes to go inside. “Oh, Jug?”

A bright flash of hope stirs in his chest. “Yeah?”

“Can I get your number? That way we can make plans without relying on our horny best friends.” Betty bites her lip, as though she wished she hadn’t said that part out loud. Jughead laughs. He likes Betty without a filter.

Betty pulls off her gloves and they huddle together in the entrance vestibule, tilting Betty’s phone for the most amount of light for Jughead to type his number out with stiff fingers. When he hands the phone back, she jumps a little at the contact with his cold skin. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don't be,” Betty whispers. She slips her phone into her coat pocket and cups his hands in hers, blowing warm air onto them. It's startlingly intimate. 

“Betty?”

She tilts her head to look back up at him. “What?”

Jughead gently pulls his hands free and moves forward with as much confidence as he can muster, placing each hand on the sides of her neck and leaning down to kiss her. It’s so goddamn cold out but Betty’s lips are warm against his and the satisfied sigh she lets out when they break apart is enough to reduce him to a puddle. When he opens his eyes, hers are still closed, a smile playing across her face, so Jughead takes the opportunity to kiss her again, more thoroughly this time.

Betty clutches at the lapels of his jacket, bringing herself as close to him as their jackets allow. She feels so soft under his palms and when he strokes the ridge of her cheekbone, she sighs into his mouth, responding to this second kiss with more fervor. They kiss with far more enthusiasm than they probably should for being in plain view, and with only a tenuous grasp on his wits, Jughead sucks lightly on her bottom lip before slowing down so his heart doesn’t leap out of his chest.

There’s a swell of pride when he sees that she looks as disheveled and undone as he feels, ponytail a little crooked and lipstick smeared. He wipes away the smudge of pink with his thumb and then guides her up to him for a brief, softer kiss.

“Goodnight, Betty Cooper.”

“Goodnight, Jughead Jones.”

She disappears into the building and Jughead feels like whooping out loud into the night air.

He doesn’t, but there is decidedly more energy in his step as he trudges through the snow to the building where his and Archie’s room is. And as he walks down the carpeted hallway, passes the framed shots of the mountain in varying kinds of weather, Jughead sees something on their door.

It’s a sock.

Archie Andrews literally put a goddamn sock on the door of their shared room. Where Jughead is supposed to sleep.

But cannot.

Because his jackass best friend is having sex in it right now.

He does, at least, have a tempting Plan B for how to wait out the time before he murders Archie. Jughead unlocks his phone and taps the missed call from a number that he now knows is Betty’s.

She picks up on the second ring, laughing in a way that tamps down some of his irritation. “That was fast, Jug.”

“I one thousand percent promise I am not being that guy, but are you going to be up for a while?”

  


 

_tbc_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot how difficult it is to write first kisses. 
> 
> anyhow. 
> 
> please, please, please comment if you enjoy! ao3 emails are my lifeblood right now. I'm blown away by the amount of love this little story has gotten so far.


	4. Chapter 4

Betty has just enough time between hanging up the phone and Jughead's arrival to stand in front of the mirror, debate if she should put the outfit back on that Veronica pushed her into for the “double date” or if she should put on something Veronica would deem appropriate for this sort of situation, and then run out the clock berating herself for immediately changing into underwear with little ice cream cones on them and her oldest, comfiest sports bra before bed.

There’s a knock and a tentative, “Hey, Betty? It’s Jug,” and she doesn’t have time to indulge the Veronica-esque voice in her head. Instead she’s calling out to the cute boy she just had an amazing first kiss with to hold on for a second while she tugs on her discarded leggings and sweater from earlier that day.

As she opens the door to find a sheepish Jughead—torn somewhere between extreme irritation and amusement—Betty realizes she hasn’t tightened her ponytail from when Jughead’s fingers were digging into it during their kiss. She wants to fix it, restore some of her careful exterior after being caught so off guard, but the moment Betty sees his expression turn slightly toward smug when she reaches up to touch her hair, all she wants to do is drag him in by the collar and wipe the smirk off his face.

She doesn’t.

But, oh man, does she want to.

“I’m sorry about this,” Jughead offers as he rubs the back of his neck, walking into the room at Betty’s welcoming gesture. “It would appear that Archie finally decided to fulfill his dudebro prophecy and sexile his best friend.”

“At least you care enough about him to not kill him,” Betty smirks. “My freshman roommate sexiled me the first night on campus and then quite regularly after the fact.”

Jughead laughs. “Au contraire, Betts. I care about him just enough to kill him for this.” He sinks onto the foot of her bed and the part of her belly that was aflame during their kiss flickers again at the image. He looks around the room, taking in his surroundings; Betty’s become messy on this trip, a backlash effect of being at home with Alice, so her clothes are in a pile on the armchair, her school things scattered across the coffee table, and, embarrassingly enough, there’s a stack of lacy lingerie in various colors that Veronica told her to try on for tonight.

She discreetly stands in front of them where they lay on the table and yanks a scarf to cover the offending items, despite her earlier consideration of them and of what Jughead's favorite color might be.

Betty needn’t have worried because Jughead starts glancing around, confused.

“Wait,” he says, and she does. “I thought Veronica shared a room with you.”

At that, Betty can’t help but laugh, stress over undergarment and clothing choices forgotten. “Mr. Lodge owns this place, no way would Veronica share with me, even if I am her best friend. She has a personal suite on the top floor and I continually have to tell her to not pull the suite next door off the booking list for me.”

He takes the information in stride, but still wears an adorable look of bewilderment. “If Veronica has her _own suite,_  why the hell did they find it necessary to go fool around in Archie’s room where _two people are supposed to sleep?_ ”

“Oh,” Betty says.

_Oh._

That certainly throws Veronica’s text, which Betty only read after returning to her room, into better context. **_We’re off! Have a fun night, B!_ **paired with some choice emojis.

Her best friend _planned_ to have Jughead incapable of staying in his room tonight, presumably so he could stay in _her_ room. For activities involving the pile of lace behind her.

Is Betty on fire? Her face feels like she’s on fire.

“I’m going to _kill_ her,” Betty moans into her hands. She doesn’t dare look up to see whether Jughead has caught on yet. It’s one thing to play encouraging matchmaker, but this—this is mortifying.

“They did that on purpose, didn’t they?”

Betty nods, still refusing to remove her hands and look at him.

She’s half-expecting him to be as embarrassed as she is, perhaps angry, but instead she’s met with a loud guffaw.

When she finally raises her eyes, Jughead is doubled over in laughter.

Dumbfounded, Betty is powerless to resist when Jughead reaches out for her hand and brings her to sit on the bed next to him. He tucks a loose lock of hair behind her ear and then runs his hand to the ends of her ponytail, twirling them loosely, laughing all the while.

“That was really damn clever, I’ll give them that. Archie never could have come up with something so conniving on his own.”

Despite her annoyance, Jughead’s laughter is contagious and soon Betty is giggling into his shoulder and relishing in the comforting touch of his fingers toying with her hair.

When they both calm down, he hums in thought. “I’m not sure which of us should be more offended, honestly.”

“It's probably dead even,” Betty admits. She’s gotten the impression Jughead isn’t the biggest social butterfly, but he’s done well enough to ensnare her affections and he’s not without his charm. As for herself—Betty’s branched out more since befriending Veronica and going off to college; there was one high school boyfriend, a handful of weeks-long quasi-relationships in college that fizzled out, and approximately one fling, but she’s never needed or wanted more than gentle encouragement from her friend.

This move feels like more of a shove and Betty can’t tell if she’s begrudgingly grateful or straight-up annoyed. They’d already had a connection and _quite_ the kiss, even before Veronica and Archie pulled this stunt.

Then again—it got Jughead up to her room without Betty stumbling over words and obsessing over protocol and getting too into her head about what every little thing means.

Even so, Betty had been more than content to end the evening on a high note with the memory of Jughead’s lips on hers and his hands on her hips.

He seems to be on the same page, thankfully. “I, uh. I’m assuming their plan is to turn everyone’s night into a sleepover but I can sleep in the chair. If you want.” Betty turns to look at him and chews on her lip in thought. “Or not. If you want. Honestly I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or say in this situation.”

“You don’t?” she teases. “You mean you _haven’t_ read the manual on navigating unintended bed-sharing with the person you just had a fantastic makeout session with due to your meddling best friends?”

“Fantastic, huh?”

This time she does kiss the smirk off his face. His momentary surprise gives Betty the opportunity to run one hand through his curls, knocking off his beanie, and the contented sigh he releases against her lips is intoxicating.

Both of his hands grasp at her hips, one thumb rubbing circles on the strip of skin above her waistband, but he’s following her lead. Even as sure as Betty is of how much she wants to extend this kiss, to mouth at his Adam’s apple and start unbuttoning his flannel, she’s also _unsure_ of how much beyond that she wants to do. Right now, anyway.

So they stay upright, kissing at leisure while Betty slings her legs over his to set them perpendicular to each other and toys with the hair at the back of his neck. Jughead forges a path across her jaw, down the column of her neck, and back up, which causes Betty to make a noise she’s certain she’s never made while still this clothed. One of his hands is keeping a gentle pressure at the crease of her waist and the other has returned to cradle her face closer to him, fingers laced through the base of her ponytail.

All of it feels immeasurably good, but Betty can also feel the tiredness settling over her and the excited adrenaline wearing off. It doesn’t stop her from slipping her tongue in Jughead’s mouth one last time before slowing her speed and letting him match her pace.

They’re still holding each other closely and Betty’s eyes open a fraction of a second faster than Jughead’s, giving her the satisfactory moment of seeing his blissed-out expression.

 _I did that,_ she thinks with glee.

“You don’t have to sleep on the chair,” Betty whispers.

He nods.

They share a few domestic minutes of teeth brushing—Betty fishing around for the Lodge-Lodge-supplied amenities—and water drinking, and when Betty slips under the covers and into Jughead’s embrace, she can’t help but think how happy she feels.

Jughead presses a light kiss to the crown of her head after she reaches to turn out the light and if she weren’t so tired, that move alone could have spurred her to climb on top of him.

“Hey Juggie?” she asks, sleep already heavy on her limbs.

“Hmm?”

“What conditioner do you use on your hair?”

She feels his whole body shake around her with the sound of his laugh. “Trade secret, Betts. Go to sleep.”

* * *

Sleep giving way to the reality of Jughead firmly wrapped around her and sunlight streaming through the curtains feels a bit like a waking dream to Betty, and a good dream at that. The warmth of his arms encircling her more than makes up for the fact that in his sleep, Jughead seems to have kicked the blankets so much that they’re covering only his feet. She giggles after noticing, now in the better light, that his boxers have hamburgers printed on them. She’s wearing cotton sleep shorts over her ice cream cones now, but is struck with the desire to wake him up and tell him that they—sort of—match.

Better yet, as he stirs at her movement and she starts to feel _other_ things wrapped around her, Betty thinks of letting him figure it out for himself. He freezes for a beat, likely realizing his predicament, then relaxes into her again.

“I’d apologize,” he mumbles, still sleep-ridden, “but I’m not all that sorry. Waking up in a pretty girl’s bed feels—very—nice.” Jughead punctuates his last few words with open-mouthed kisses hot on her neck and in a flash, Betty spins in his arms so his mouth is on hers.

His hands come to flex around her hips, one squeezing tight and the other plucking gently at her waistband. “Is this okay,” he murmurs into her neck.

“ _God,_ yes,” Betty whispers, not recognizing the desperate plea in her own voice.

She feels him look down as he slides the shorts over her legs and then smile into the skin just below her collarbone.

“Cute panties.”

“Nice boxers,” Betty says back, reinforcing her point by pressing a palm against the front of them.

Jughead reacts with a groan before he sucks harshly at a ticklish spot on her neck and moves back up to her mouth. Betty tries to put all her energy, all the positivity she felt at waking up with him, into the kiss. She thinks—hopes—he understands and then they’re both breathing too hard, hands too busy, to focus on keeping their lips sealed against one another.

* * *

They’d fallen back to sleep, covers draped fully over them this time, with Betty’s head on his chest and Jughead’s palm still warm against her back when she hears her phone go off. She knows it’s Veronica before even looking, since there’s a chiming sound and her best friend is the only one she uses a ringtone for.

“Good morning, Betty! I trust you slept well?” Betty can practically _hear_ Veronica’s cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

“I don’t know, V, I think you’re the one that had a more athletic endeavor prior to going to sleep from what I hear.” Betty tries to match her friend’s tone, but the effect is dulled by the whisper she uses so as not to wake Jughead, who’s rolled over and now has his hand on her thigh.

If not for the evenness of his breath, she’d think he was awake the placement is so precise.

Veronica singsongs her response. “That may be true, but I’m not the one whispering to avoid waking up her bedfellow right now.”

“I assume that’s only because you finally went back to _your own room_.”

Her giggle breaks the pretense. “You should have seen Archie’s face when he finally realized the logic behind that idea. He’s so precious and just wants the best for his friend.”

Betty smiles, unable to uphold an air of annoyance with her any longer. “Sounds like another well-intentioned best friend I know.”

“So my plan worked, I take it?”

“I plead the fifth.”

The excited squeal from Veronica is loud enough through the speaker that Jughead blinks awake and lifts his head in confusion. “What the hell was that?”

“ _Hello, beanie boy!”_ Veronica shouts through the phone, enough to make Betty wince.

Jughead rolls his eyes, pulls the phone from Betty’s grasp, and says, “Goodbye ski princess,” before hanging up.

Betty raises an eyebrow.

“What?” he defends. “You’ll see her later. I want to keep you to myself this morning.”

Something warm stirs in her chest and Betty feels it blooming into color on her cheeks. She’s known this boy for all of three days and he’s already swept her off her feet, completely by accident, if his own blush is any indication.

“That sounded cheesier than I wanted it to be,” he mumbles, looking to where his hand is still on her thigh and choosing that moment to drum his fingers on her skin. It electrifies her nerve endings once again. 

“I don’t mind cheesy,” Betty giggles. “It balances out the mysterious, brooding academic vibe you’ve got going on.”

He groans in frustration. “ _Speaking_ of academia.”

“Yeah, we should probably get up if we want to commandeer those armchairs again before people come back from early morning runs.”

“God, skiers are so weird, who willingly tortures themselves by going down a mountain at 8am.” Jughead’s fingers pause their drumming and he looks up quickly. “Shit, I mean—”

Her first instinct is to be defensive, given that it was her entire life for so long: 5am alarms to eat Alice-approved egg whites and grapefruit before 7am workouts and 8am timed runs and on and on and on. But as Betty sees Jughead waiting in apprehension, she realizes he’s only said it because he never knew Betty Cooper the Skier and she’s more than okay with that; he knows Betty the reluctant ski instructor who only tolerates the mountain for her best friend and prefers to get her exercise through dance classes, who is known best at school for working on the newspaper and getting into heated debates with assholes in her classes.

She _likes_ being this Betty and though her world away at school validates that Betty’s existence, it’s nice to meet someone in this world who likes that Betty too.

A very cute someone, who’s a good kisser.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him. “Trust me, I know.”

* * *

They eat breakfast together again, their shared glances more confident than those from the day before. Jughead is telling her about the article he found the day before and its relevance to his project with such obvious enthusiasm that Betty isn’t sure if she wants to enlist his research skills or drag him back to bed.

After this morning’s events, Betty finds herself easily distracted by the movements of Jughead’s hands. If the plan is to spend the day studying with him again she is going to have a bitch of a time focusing. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be Veronica.

And as Veronica is wont to do, she appears immediately at Betty’s first thought of her, as though telepathically summoned.

“B! And B’s beanie boy! Mind if we join you?”

Behind her, Archie appears, looking appropriately shamefaced for his involvement in the prior night’s deception.

“I have a name, you know,” Jughead snarks. Betty expects him to slide over to make room for Archie, as she just did for Veronica, but he—once again—surprises her by pushing his coffee and bacon over to the space she just cleared and stands to move next to her. His hand rests at the small of her back as he sits down, another unexpected, sweet gesture. 

Veronica _hmphs_ , looking mildly impressed at the action, and then settles in across from Betty.

“I’ll learn your name if I deem you good enough for my Betty here.”

For a wild, mortifying moment, Betty thinks Veronica is about to ask her how satisfactory the evening was.

(The evening was lovely and the morning was _more than_ satisfactory, but she’s not about to share that information with the class.)

Archie swoops in before Veronica has any chance to follow through on the deadly look of her arched eyebrow and Betty immediately forgives him for his part in the forced room swap. “Jug, do you and Betty want to come skiing with us today? We can stick to the bunny hills for ya.”

A pained expression comes over Jughead’s face and Betty mourns the loss of the satisfied grin that had been there since she woke up in his arms. “I actually need Jug’s research expertise today for part of my thesis, if you can spare him.”

The grin returns, but only in Betty’s direction. It falls to a scowl when Archie responds.

“Can I live without watching Jug trip over his own two feet on skis? I’d been planning to make up for a lifetime of him ragging on me for being too much of bro-y athlete, but I can survive if it’s all in the name of good grades.”

“Archie, if man was supposed to slide down mountains on purpose, we would have been born without the need for skis.”

The back and forth speeds up, voices raising, but their spat is over as soon as it’s started, swiftly ended by Archie landing a punch Jughead’s shoulder. Betty places her hand over where Jughead is rubbing at the sore spot and attempts to soothe it for him. Archie is wearing a boyish smile that pairs with Jughead’s own—breaking through his pout over the punch—and Betty can see why her friend is so smitten.

Betty has never been keen on playing third wheel or being part of Veronica’s double date, but she can’t help but admit that this—watching Archie and Jughead squabble while sharing eyerolls with her best friend—has been one of better instances, if not the best. Gratefulness washes over her, settling in next to the contentment of this morning.

Unable to contain this unexpected bout of happiness, Betty lifts her coffee mug and clinks it against Veronica’s glass of orange juice in cheers.  

 

 

 _tbc_  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you thank you for all the love for this! please leave a comment if you feel so inclined!


	5. Chapter 5

Ever since Jughead woke up with one Miss Betty Cooper in his arms this morning, he can’t concentrate. He had been at his most focused in the early light and soft blankets, intent on hearing more of her breathy half-moans while he worked the pad of his thumb in a gentle rhythm, but from the moment she snuck her hand down his boxers onward, he’s been useless.

All he wants is _more_ : more of her chapstick sticky on his lips after kissing her, more shy smiles and rosy cheeks when he catches her watching him, more of the quiet pride in her voice as she tells stories of how she won’t let her family run her life, more laughter, more gazes at him that make him feel like he could float away.

And absolutely more of Betty practically in his lap on the couch they're sharing to do work together, leaning over to see his laptop screen as he pulls up a digital journal his beloved SUNY network has access to that her university doesn’t.

(“Nobody’s staffing the library over break,” she complains. “So no one can process my interlibrary request until campus opens again.”

The look of delight on her face as he says he skimmed an article in that exact journal two days prior has him thinking obscene thoughts about how else he could go about pulling that reaction from her.)

They’re under no pretenses that Betty is going to do anything other than stay exactly where she is for the duration of her reading. Jughead idly runs his hand up and down her back, lets his mind wander back to the morning’s activities, and wracks his brain for the appropriate word for the feeling of utter contentment he’d felt both times he’d opened his eyes to her cradled to him.

_At peace_ , he thinks. Once over his initial nervousness, Jughead has been calm and confident around Betty. He likes this version of himself, the one that feels self-assured in social settings rather than overlooked and bitter. Her and her bouncy blonde ponytail are an unexpected ray of light in his otherwise sullen life.

This trip, Jughead decides, is undoubtedly worth the investment.

And then his concentration goes haywire again because she’s _still in his lap_ and humming with the cap of her pen between her teeth, one hand on his thigh and the other moving deftly across his computer’s trackpad.

Unable to resist the urge, he crooks a finger under Betty’s jaw and turns her face to look at him. She fixes him with a questioning look but he merely removes the pen cap and then kisses her soundly. After a long moment, Jughead separates from her with a distinct smacking nose and she blinks at him, shellshocked.

“What are you—” she starts to ask.

Jughead interrupts her with one more quick stamp of his lips on hers and then tilts her face back to the screen. “Shh, read your article.”  

He is mildly aware that he’s exhibiting the kind of behavior that, if he witnessed in a public setting while studying, would make him want to put his head through a wall; he can’t bring himself to care.

* * *

“Oh damn,” Betty says, some hours later. “I have to teach a lesson soon and my jacket’s upstairs.”

She’s no longer on his lap, but is sitting cross-legged next to him with one knee stacked on his and his arm around her shoulder, and he feels the loss of her the instant she moves. If he could do so without feeling silly, he’d pout. There are only so many hours left before he and Betty will have to part ways and Jughead’s previously undiscovered sentimental side wants to soak up as much time with her as possible.

“I’ll help you bring your stuff back up.” He makes the offer without, he hopes, showing his hand or appearing too needy. The last thing he wants is to let his excitement at such an instant, positive connection to come off as overeager. Jughead knows from Archie’s many tales that this is a surefire way scare off all kinds of budding romances.

But at the same time, the warmth in her eyes and her intent listening makes him want to spill all his life story to her.

(Talk about scaring someone off; nothing sends up a red flag like abandonment issues, alcoholic fathers, and the cyclical nature of poverty, abuse, and disappointment.)

The smile of thanks Betty gives him has that same warmth, though it morphs into something closer to heated when Jughead shrugs off his flannel and ties it around his waist before picking up a stack of books. He’s wearing the same sleeveless undershirt he’d slept in, so it’s not new territory for Betty, but then again they’d both had quite the wakeup call.

“My eyes are up here,” he teases.

Bracing the books against his bare arm and his bag in the other, Jughead catches Betty’s eye to see her blushing furiously with her lip drawn between her teeth.

They barely make it into the elevator before Jughead is dropping everything into his bag and pushing her against the wall. “I really did—” Betty manages to get out, first between kisses and then between gasps as Jughead sucks on her neck— “did need—my jacket—I have to— _teach."_ She finishes on a whine when the elevator dings, doors opening, and Jughead backs away to pick up their discarded items and wink at her.

“So let’s go get your jacket.”

They end up inside the room, up against the closed door, furiously making out for far longer than Betty’s schedule allows. Jughead is just sliding his hand up to the clasp of her bra when her cell phone buzzes loudly from where it’s been dropped on the floor among study materials and computers.

She groans, but it’s not the groan Jughead wants to hear from her. “That’s my coworker, I have to go.”

“Ditch out,” he murmurs into her mouth, even as his hands slip out from beneath her sweater and he backs away. He knows that if he doesn’t leave now, he’ll drag her right into bed and explore until she’s forgotten how to walk, let alone ski, and tells her as much.

It comes out bolder and more crass than intended, which makes him cringe inwardly, but the red cheeks and arched eyebrow he gets in return are worth it.

* * *

Jughead both does and doesn’t want to be that guy who waits outside his girl’s job until her shift is over, the implications of which are too much to process without a headache, so he returns to his and Archie’s room while Betty runs her ski lessons.

He has grand plans to get some work done on the current section of his thesis that he’d ignored while Betty was distractingly close, maybe take a look at the list of grad programs he’s supposed to be evaluating, even dig through his meager duffle bag to see if he packed anything remotely acceptable to wear to a fancy New Year’s Eve party in an effort to continue his shockingly successful quasi-flirtation-slash-fling with a very pretty girl who goes to fancy New Year’s Eve parties.

None of that happens. His anthology makes for a great impromptu pillow on the expensive desk that probably cost more to carve into a convincing tree shape than it would be to buy an entire forest of real trees.

Jughead’s first dream is a horrifying combination of Faulkner characters rambling at him about his own familial dramas instead of their own and of Archie teaching him to ski. He’s racing down a mountain at breakneck speed, unable to stop even when he sees a beaming Betty at the finish line, with the entire cast of characters from _As I Lay Dying_ following behind him, wagon and all. It’s unsettling and when he wakes up, computer angrily _ping-ing_ at him for having let his elbow rest on the space bar for too long, Jughead cannot shake the feeling that it has a deeper meaning than just that he fell asleep while reading an excerpt of the novel.

Hopefully that’s all it is, too many conflicting stories—both fiction and reality—at odds with each other in his mind. He feels more confident in that fact when he’s woken up from a dream about a _Pride and Prejudice-_ style ball (featuring Betty, naturally) by Archie lobbing his ski goggles directly at Jughead’s stomach.

“What the _hell_ , Arch?”

“Dude. Sleep when we’re home. We are in a five star ski lodge with world class food, girls who are willingly spending their vacation time with us, and a game room with Xbox set up on a wall-sized screen.”

For once in his life, Archie has a point.

The most important of which being the food, as Jughead realizes he’s slept through his usual afternoon snack time.

Seeing that he’s struck a chord, Archie laughs. “Let me shower and then we’ll grab food and go play life-sized Call of Duty?”

The answer, unequivocally, is yes. However, Jughead can’t help but wish his favorite time-wasting, Archie-friendly activity were a little more Betty-friendly as well; all he wants is to spend more time with her, but there is nothing she will find attractive about him housing chicken wings while swearing at Archie for blowing his avatar’s head off.

Besides, this trip is supposed to be one last hurrah for him and Archie before the reality of post-grad life hits them. All too soon, Jughead will be neck deep in even more literary analyses and Archie will be teaching impressionable young minds how to not break guitars or trumpets. He imagines Betty must be in a similar situation with Veronica, though he can’t remember if she mentioned what she wants to do after crossing the stage, other than to stay in California.

He sends her a text message, asking to hang out after dinner again, and vows to find out Betty Cooper’s life plans tonight, because Betty Cooper is precisely the kind of girl who has a life plan. And if it just so happens that he asks while his hand is up her shirt, then so be it.

* * *

Jughead _does_ ask later what Betty’s thinking for after school, but the sad reality is that he asks her while they’re both fully clothed and in public.

“Anything that lets me write for a living,” she whispers back to him, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bucket in his lap.

They’re in Lodge-Lodge’s screening room, which is approximately twice the size of Riverdale’s tiny, old-school movie theater and plays movies every evening, complete with gourmet popcorn and reclining seats. It had been hard to say no to, even before Betty told him that night’s pick was _Fargo._

Predictably, Archie and Veronica are sharing one of the large recliners to make out in relative secrecy, though not out of view of their friends. Betty and Jughead have been holding stilted conversation, pausing to talk between scenes, and while her whispers are crystal clear, he regrets not feigning ignorance so she might follow Veronica’s lead and slide into his seat.

Betty takes matters into her own hands moments after whispering her surprisingly vague plans in his ear, though. Not one to need an excuse, she merely stands up, stretches, and then settles back down, wedging herself between Jughead’s hip and the cushioned arm, her own seat long forgotten.

If she notices his smirk, she says nothing.

“What about you?”

“What about me, _what_?”

“What are your grand graduate school plans, Mr. Jones? Are you going to be the hot TA all the freshman girls in American Lit fawn over while you study how to write the next great American novel?” Betty’s breath is hot against his ear and he shudders. Between that and her hand dropping to his thigh, it’s a wonder he manages to say anything at all.

“Something like that.”

As quickly as she can turn on her flirting, Betty switches back to her shyness from the days prior. The tease is still in her voice, but the tone changes to something softer when she says, “I’d love to see that, actually. Maybe I’ll come visit.”

The popcorn he’s chewing turns dry in his throat, requiring two clearings of his throat before he can whisper back.

“That’d be nice.”

* * *

By the time the movie’s finished, Archie and Veronica have left—to her room this time—and Betty is fast asleep under Jughead’s arm. The sight of her ponytail moving slightly with the rise and fall of his own chest makes him ache and he tries hard to forget that, in 36 hours, he'll be back in Riverdale and, not long after, Betty will be on her way back to California.

Ships passing, he supposes.

The pragmatic response is to enjoy this while it lasts, appreciate the momentary spark for the happiness it brings him. But—fuck pragmatism. Jughead would prefer this moment never end; but it will, and he’s going to wallow in his irritation over it.

Betty shifts in his grasp, mumbling, and he’s shaken out of his sour mood. “Did I miss the end?”

“And most of the middle.”

She yawns. “Damn, that’s one of my favorites too.” When she climbs out of their tangled position and stretches her arms above her head, the hem of her long-sleeved shirt rides up, the pale of her skin drawing Jughead’s eyes like a magnet.

“My eyes are up here.” If the teasing callback had any intention other than reminding Jughead of how absurdly turned on he’d been that afternoon with Betty pressed between him and a door, it failed. His hands are on her waist in no time at all, pulling her flush against him to kiss her.

“Should we go upstairs?” Even though they’re the only ones in the large room, he asks in a hushed tone, as though speaking too loudly might shatter the moment.

Betty looks up at him, unblinking, and he thinks he could get lost in the green of her eyes. When she nods, she stands on tiptoes to reinforce her yes by kissing him with everything she’s got. Jughead has to consciously stop himself from responding in kind just so he can keep a clear enough head to grab hold of her hand and steer them out of the recreation wing and to the elevators.

This time, she’s the one who shoves him against the mirrored wall. Her hands are everywhere and she’s doing sinful things with her tongue and the damn elevator just will not move fast enough. They practically ricochet down the hallway to her room, each of them stopping their movement every few paces to kiss harder, hold tighter, groan louder. Clothes start coming off the moment Betty manages to get her key card to work properly (the first four tries, her hands are too unsteady from Jughead’s mouth on her shoulder and fingers under her shirt).

The pile grows—beanie, flannel, sweater, tshirt, undershirt, jeans, leggings—until they’re standing millimeters apart, breathing hard with eyes locked, clad only in their underwear.

Jughead had thoroughly appreciated the panties she had on this morning, ice cream cones of many colors that made him smile before slipping his hand beneath them, but now—now she’s got something dark and lacy on, delicately stretched across her hips and breasts and he’s smiling in what he thinks might be a proprietary way.

She put those on for _him._ Betty put on a lace, flimsy excuse for a bra that he can see her nipples through and tiny black panties for him to _take off of her._

“You’re so beautiful, Betts,” he breathes.

Pink dusts her cheeks as she reaches out to press her thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip.

“I’m so happy I met you.” She says it so softly that he’s not sure he was supposed to hear, but he does, and it only buoys the electricity running through his veins.

Jughead can’t bear to not hold her any longer, so reaches for her again and revels in how she relaxes into his touch. When she sighs into his mouth, he’s lost in the burning sensation of skin on skin and pulls them down to the bed. And then it’s nothing but soft moans and more sighs and the distinct feeling of a freefall.

 

 

****_tbc_  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thank you thank you thank you for all the comments and positive feedback! I'm so glad you're enjoying this silly little world.


	6. Chapter 6

For the second morning in a row, Betty wakes up to Jughead between the sheets with her, with his lips on her neck. These kisses are softer, more innocent than the ones from yesterday morning and last night—those kisses were fire on her skin and a buildup of more to come, of bodies with nothing between them, of uncontrollable need and rolling hips and _more, Jug, right there_ and _shit, you feel amazing like this._ Those kisses sent her spinning out of control and these ones are grounding her, like the peck on her lips when they were studying or the one right after Jughead collapsed beside her, spent and smiling.

“Morning,” he whispers, nuzzling slightly into her neck before she turns to face him and he’s continuing to pepper light kisses all across her face.

His messy bedhead is nothing short of ridiculous and Betty runs her fingers through it. “You look like a rooster, Juggie.”

Feigning offense, Jughead moves to push her away from him but stops as a sly grin breaks over his face. “You sure it’s a _rooster,_ Betty? Not another name for the male chicken? Or perhaps you meant—” at this, he launches himself toward her and they land with a soft thump, Jughead on top and grinding his lower half against her thigh to punctuate his next word—“a _cockatoo?”_

Though she rolls her eyes at the terrible innuendo, Betty’s giggle soon takes over her whole body until she’s laughing so hard that it reverberates against where Jughead is on top of her.

“Maybe you should brush up on your zoology when we study later.”

She raises her eyebrow. “Who says we’re studying together?”

There’s the faintest flicker of disappointment, Jughead’s smirk dropping, and Betty rushes to continue before the moment is ruined by a misunderstanding.

“Studying means we have to get out of bed and I have no plans to do that anytime soon. But,” she sighs, trying to wiggle out from under him. “If you _really_ want to work on your thesis, I guess I can go get dressed.”

Betty laughs at her own half-hearted joke, but Jughead’s next words come out in such a low tone, it’s nearly a growl. “Don’t you dare,” he tells her and then those fiery kisses are back: first on her mouth, then after a nip of teeth on her bottom lip, on her neck and collarbone, down to her hip and then even further until there’s nothing but devastating heat on sensitive skin and her giggles turn to high-pitched keens.

* * *

Eventually, they do get out of bed. But not before Betty returns the favor so thoroughly that Jughead has to practically yank her up by the ponytail in order to finish in a manner more pleasurable for them both.

They shower together—to save water of course, Betty tells him—and make it down to the dining room with only four pit stops to make out between leaving the bathroom and arriving at a table already occupied by Archie and Veronica.

Her best friend looks pointedly between their wet hair and kiss-swollen lips, and Betty blushes furiously. This time the request for information isn’t even through sly looks or vague implications. “Betty, I expect to hear all about your night when we get ready for the party later,” Veronica says in a conspiratorial whisper.

Next to them, Archie doesn’t address it. “About time man, they’re gonna run out of bacon soon.”

“Shit,” Jughead swears. He’s several paces away before turning and rushing back to her. “Do you want some Betty?”

“All yours, Jug,” she laughs.

* * *

They make a joint decision to not do schoolwork on Jughead’s last vacation day at the Lodge and Betty trades lesson days with another coworker so she doesn’t have to leave at all. She’ll have to do double 8am days after Jug leaves, but she knows it will be worth it.

As Veronica and Archie leave them for another day of what Betty can only imagine is a lot of making out on the ski lift interrupted by minimal skiing, Veronica calls out to her, “I demand solo girl time to get ready for the party and I will make no exceptions.” She turns to Jughead before warning, “And there best be no hickeys I need to put cover up on for her party dress.”

Betty goes pink, as does Jughead, but he dishes it back just as well with a sly, “Too late and no promises there won’t be more.”

Laughing, Veronica salutes him. “I like you, Jughead.”  

“I finally have a name,” he says in turn to Betty, who is still blushing and self-consciously rubbing at the area under the neck of her sweater where she knows a large hickey is beginning to appear.

For as much as she wouldn’t _mind_ spending more time letting Jughead suck bruises into her skin, Betty feels like she should make this last day together more meaningful than that. Not that a day of really hot sex wouldn’t be meaningful—nor that _not_ having a meaningful last day with him would negate the blessing in disguise that was meeting him in the first place—but Betty knows she isn’t likely to find another person like Jughead in her lifetime and she wants to savor this.

(Whatever _this_ is; a fling, lightning in a bottle, the feeling of being completely and deeply _seen_ by someone, a fleeting chance, ships passing in the night. Betty doesn’t _want_ to merely be passing ships, but there is no Emily Post chapter on how to discuss turning your vacation fling into something more with the partner from said vacation fling.

Veronica might know, but Betty gets the impression that Veronica and Archie are more okay with their passing ships status than she—and hopefully Jughead—is.)  

Shyly smiling at each other and hands intertwined, they make their way back upstairs where the remnants of their lust-filled night still litter the floor of Betty’s room. The memories of Jughead peeling the black lace bralette off her flood her brain when she hurriedly picks it (and her sweater, Jughead’s undershirt, the condom wrapper, and her panties) up and the boy himself wraps his arms around her from behind to pull her shirt down slightly and kiss where the hickey is (more than one, she notices, _and_ a faint bite mark that she now remembers is from him groaning into her skin as he finished).

Though her body flushes with heat and she’s more than willing to go for another round—and it feels like Jughead is as well—Betty is tired, a little sore, and feels content with his solid body wrapped around her in a purely comforting manner. He catches her drift, backing up slightly to put some space between her back and his front, but still presses his lips into her hair and murmurs in her ear.

“I know we fundamentally disagree on literature, but do you think we can find a movie we both like?”

Betty breathes out in laughter. “I’m sure there’s something in my queue you won’t hate.” They take a few moments to get situated, straightening blankets and settling comfortably against the pillows, before Betty somewhat reluctantly hands over her laptop. “Judge away, Jug.”

It, predictably, takes forever.

Betty is steadfast in her defense of chick flicks— “You can’t hate _10 Things I Hate About You,_ it’s Shakespeare!”—and laughs in Jughead’s face when he halfhearted-but-hopefully suggests _Reservoir Dogs_ —“You have to at least appreciate it for its cinematic value, come on!”—but they eventually settle on a Hitchcock classic.

“You _are_ blonde,” Jughead teases as the opening credits of _Rear Window_ roll. She retaliates by tugging the hem of his beanie down over his eyes, and he responds in kind with a smacking kiss on her cheek.

Once Betty’s giggle fit is over, Jughead has fixed his hat, and his arm is lazily tracing patterns on her shoulder, they relax into each other. Over the sounds of James Stewart’s voyeurism, Betty lifts her eyes to Jughead’s and smiles at his look of concentration as he watches.

“This is nice,” she whispers, more to herself than anything else.

Almost startled, Jughead catches her eye and sighs happily. “Yeah, yeah it is.”

* * *

They’d fallen asleep after finishing the movie and woken up some time later, the streaming service having carried on and _Vertigo_ playing on the laptop that had slid off Jughead’s lap. Instead of starting it from the beginning or paying any amount of attention to the film, Jughead tilts Betty’s face to his and kisses her deeply.

She’s nervous when she whispers between kisses if it’s okay that they only do this, not sure why she’s so concerned when Jughead has been nothing but a gentlemen but still apprehensive that his expectations have been raised after last night. Betty needn’t have worried because Jughead whispers back an “Of course,” before pressing his lips at the hollow of her ear and tangling one hand into her ponytail, the other firmly above her shirt on the curve of her waist. They stay that way, bodies close and mouths moving softly over exposed skin for what feels like an eternity.

It’s not an eternity, but merely half an hour, because the text from Veronica reading **_I’m kidnapping you for beauty prep in 30!_ ** lit up Betty’s phone right before Jughead kissed her.

They’re still wrapped up in each other, Betty started to pant in need and Jughead hard in his jeans as he’s pressed against her, when a flurry of knocking echoes through the room.

“Make yourselves decent, I have a master key and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Jughead swears, flying away from where their hips are joined, and Betty yells back, “I hate you, V!”

“No you don’t,” chirps Veronica. She flings the door open and strides inside, rolling her eyes at Jughead attempting to look nonchalant while laying on his stomach to stare at the blank laptop screen. “Bettykins, I’ll give you ten minutes to separate back into two distinct beings and then I want you upstairs.”

The look on her best friend’s face is one she recognizes, the signature glare that means Veronica Lodge is not to be trifled with. Betty knows better than to push back too hard—she had agreed to this, after all, and her friend is only being her charismatic, kind self—but can’t help but settle Veronica with her own kind of glare. “What exactly was the point of you coming in here, then, when you could have called or knocked _without_ barging through the door?”

“This was more fun.”

Jughead is muttering next to her on the bed, something that sounds vaguely like, _No goddamn wonder she’s sleeping with Archie._

“I will see you in ten minutes. _Goodbye, Veronica.”_

Veronica’s eyes are narrowed, but Betty can see she’s made her point. “Ten minutes. Otherwise I’m coming back with a spray bottle like you’re misbehaving cats. Do not doubt me, Betty.”

“Veronica,” cuts in Jughead with a groan. “If I promise to make sure Archie is not only on time, but perhaps even five minutes early, to whatever time you’ve arranged, can you leave _immediately_ and make it fifteen minutes?”

He gets an eyebrow, but one more of appreciation than skepticism. “You have yourself a deal, beanie boy. Ta-ta.”

When the door slams shut, Veronica’s whirlwind heading back down the hall, Betty rolls over on the bed to stare at Jughead. “That was impressive.”

He grins wolfishly at her. “And a little bit hot too, you have to admit.”

Betty bursts out laughing, rolling again until Jughead is on his back beneath her. “Yes, Jughead, very hot.”

Jughead hums in thought. “So we have fifteen minutes now, whatever will we do?”

“I’ve got a couple ideas.” Betty swoops down to nip at his lips and then keeps moving until she’s smiling up at him from where his jeans are still tight. “We need to make every minute count, right?” she winks as she tightens her ponytail.

* * *

It’s eighteen minutes before Betty makes it up to Veronica’s suite but, mercifully, her friend says nothing. Once she and Jughead disentangle, he walks her to the elevator bank, pressing both the up and down buttons, and kissing her again before stepping into the one going downstairs.

“Go get glittery or something,” he calls out, doors closing slowly.

Warmth blooms outward from every place Jughead touches her, be it with his lips or his talented fingers or even just a fully-clothed embrace; Betty has been somewhere between a cat happily curled up in front of a fire and the fire itself ever since she met Jughead. It’s hard to believe they’ve only known each other for a few days when every time Betty looks at him, she feels like they have already spent a lifetime together.

“You are smitten, Betty Cooper,” Veronica accuses good-naturedly when she sweeps her into the room. “What on earth are we going to do with you?”

Betty sighs. What _is_ she going to do?

“I don’t know, V. I like him a lot already. The last few days have been completely unreal.”

“I’ll say.” Veronica pulls Betty by the hands and directs her onto the stool in front of her enormous vanity, already littered with makeup and hair products. “Girl, you are practically glowing.”

“I _feel_ glowy. I don’t know that I’ve ever been this excited about a guy, so naturally he’s on the other side of the damn country from where I live.” The unfortunate reality of their situation and the prospect of spending the next few hours of what little time they have left together away from Jughead is significantly dampening Betty’s mood.

“Well it’s been, what, four days since we all met? And that boy is looking at you like you hung the moon, so it seems like for both of you that it’s more than just sex.” She pauses, locking eyes with Betty in the mirror from where she stands behind, starting to untie her ponytail. “There _is_ at least sex, though, right? Please tell me there’s sex.”

Though never fond of getting into too much detail with her best friend—purely from self-preservation because Betty doesn’t like hearing all of Veronica’s details either—Betty is too satisfied from all of her Jughead-related encounters to stop herself. “Oh trust me, V, there’s definitely sex.” Somewhat bashfully, but still smiling, Betty pulls the neck of her sweater aside to show her where the worst hickey is. “I’m gonna need your help on this one, because the dress I packed does _not_ cover this spot.”

“You minx!” Veronica shuffles through the various compacts and tubes on the vanity. “We should have the proper tools to take care of that, don’t you worry. But I bet if we leave it, your precious beanie boy will drag you into a coat closet during the party to ravish you some more.”

Betty glares, a blush finally starting to heat up her face.

Hands raised in surrender, Veronica says, “Okay, okay, we’ll cover it.” Betty hears her sing-song under her breath, though, something about how there are probably more in less obvious places.

She’s not entirely wrong.

“And so what if he’s all the way out here—pick one,” she interrupts to hand Betty a Pinterest page of intricate hairdos. “We’re all about to graduate anyway. Who says he’s staying put?”

“I guess that’s true,” Betty muses. Veronica moves about the room to put on a playlist and starts singing into a hairbrush at the first pop song that plays while Betty scrolls through photos. One toward the bottom catches her eye, a simple look that leaves most of the hair down with several small braids twisted into a halo around the crown of the head. Betty’s mind immediately flies to Jughead’s beanie and the pointed ends that look like his own kind of crown.

“This one,” she tells Veronica, who dances over, still singing.

“Take over!” She hands the brush to Betty in exchange for her phone. Betty gives into the cheesy moment, singing the lines of the chorus loudly into the pseudo microphone before cracking up.

She misses these times when she’s all the way in California, her and Veronica reliving their silly high school days whenever they’re together. As much as she’ll miss Jughead once he and Archie leave the next day, Betty’s glad to have best friend time for the rest of this trip home.

Looking up from her phone, Veronica smirks. “I totally should have guessed.” From behind, she leans down and wraps her arms around Betty. “Let’s make you look like a queen for beanie boy.”

* * *

Queen may be a stretch, but once Veronica’s done working her magic and Betty stands in front of the mirror, she’s thrilled with how she looks. For as ingrained as the Alice Cooper voice in her head is, she doesn’t immediately look for a flaw in the mirror like always. Instead she sees the tiny crown of twisted braids, her favorite eyeliner winged out perfectly by Veronica’s steady hand, the lace overlay of her deep purple dress coming into a scoop just over her breasts, the sparkly silver heels Veronica insisted on, and the wide smile on her face.

Veronica wasn’t kidding, she really is glowing.

Her lipstick is her favorite everyday pink and, true to form for the past 48 hours, Betty’s first thought is how it’ll end up smudged by Jughead later. She’d be lying if she said she weren’t excited for that moment.

Beside her, Veronica is a vision in a tight, gold-sequined mini dress and a bright red lip. “Look at us go,” she croons. “Those boys won’t know what hit them.”

They don’t.

But they did clean up so nicely that Betty is equally as floored when they met up in the lobby. Archie is, as Veronica requested, matching with a gold tie and they look so good on each other’s arms that they could be in a lifestyle magazine on the rich and famous. Meanwhile, Jughead is _in a suit._ Jughead is looking _fantastic_ in a suit.

Jughead looks so good in his suit, in fact, that Betty has half a mind to forgo this entire event, drag him upstairs, and take the suit off him.

“You guys are supposed to be the ones good with words,” Archie laughs, looking between the two of them and back, each stumbling over compliments.

Jughead punches Archie in the arm before moving to Betty and pulling her aside.

“You’re in a suit,” Betty says, still torn between the options of staring at him in the suit or out of the suit.

He shrugs, looking sheepish. “Archie spilled coffee on the shirt he packed so I went into town with him to buy a new one. I knew you and Veronica were going all out for this, figured the least I could do is rent a suit and not subject you to the same flannel I’ve been wearing for days.” He trails off, tugging at the hem of his beanie nervously.

“You look amazing, Juggie.”

“And no adjective will do you any justice,” Jughead says in a sincere, awed tone. “You’re so beautiful.”

They’re both blushing at the compliments and the moment feels a lot like the first day they spent together, too awkward in their uncertainty about a mutual attraction to behave properly. Betty feels nervous all over again, worried that this night won’t live up to any expectations they’ve built about the end of their time together.

He must sense something is off, and puts his hand on her lower back to guide her into a corner and away from the large number of people in fancy clothes that are starting to appear.

“Is everything okay?”

Betty starts to feel tears well up and wills herself to stop, if only so she doesn’t ruin her makeup, but also so she doesn’t weep in front of this boy she’s known for a few days that she has confusingly strong feelings for already.

“I’m—” her voice comes out thick, giving her away, and Jughead’s expression turns more concerned. “I’m sad that this is our last day together. Is that crazy of me?”

He softens, hand rubbing at the small of her back and leaning in to kiss her forehead. “Not crazy at all. I’m feeling the same way, to be completely honest.” Jughead leans against the wall and Betty joins at his side, letting the wood at her back ground her in its solidity. “I didn’t expect to enjoy this trip, let alone meet someone like you, Betty. You’re smart and well-read and not afraid to argue with me, you’re gorgeous and snarky, and I love it.” He turns, leaning on his shoulder to look at her. “You are an incredible person, Betty Cooper. I’m so glad to have met you.”

The tears spill over now, Betty unable to do anything about it but surge forward and kiss Jughead until they both taste the salt of them on their lips. When they break apart, her lipstick is smeared on the corner of his mouth and it’s just as satisfying as she thought it would be.

* * *

Most of the night is spent sitting at a high top table, watching Archie and Veronica get drunker and dance wilder. Betty sips on a glass of wine and Jughead does the same with his beer, and though Betty would love to take shots and dance with her best friend, she doesn’t want to forget a single moment of this.

She has a feeling she’ll be replaying her memories of this week for the weeks to come, so she wants to get it right.

Betty wants every second of the night burned in her mind: Archie trying to drag a protesting Jughead onto the dance floor, Betty convincing him to go by saying she’ll come too and then whispering in his ear what she’d do later that night if he dances with her for at least three songs, and then Jughead flying out of his seat with her in tow; Jughead tipping heavily so one of the servers will bring all food to their table first; arguing passionately with Jughead about the merits of modern film adaptations of classic novels until he puts an end to her rambling by slipping his tongue in her mouth; placing bets again on how long it takes for Archie and Veronica to sneak off, Jughead telling her he wants his prize to be them sneaking off long enough for him to get her off in a coat closet; Jughead _actually_ getting her off in the coat closet, one hand under the skirt of her dress and the other pinching her nipple through the fabric; running into Veronica in the ladies’ room after, both of them there to fix hair and lipstick and collapsing in a fit of giggles.

It’s a beautiful night, right down to the end when Jughead pulls her into his chest as the entire crowd stands in front of the ballroom’s wall of windows to watch the Lodge version of the Times Square ball drop and Jughead kissing her soundly at midnight with fireworks both in the background and low in her belly.

Her head is heavy on his shoulder as the whole group rides the elevator upstairs, neither couple even pretending that Archie or Jughead might be sleeping in their room. Betty and Jughead leave first, Betty squeezing Veronica for a hug and whispering, “Love you, V.” 

She’s sleepy and so comfortable leaning into Jughead, and his suit jacket is around her shoulders—a gesture so domestic that Betty nearly starts crying all over again. When the door closes behind them, they’re up against it again to rest their bodies.

“What you said about me earlier, Jug,” Betty starts.

He pulls back to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I wanted to say it before I, you know, started crying, but you are all of those things and more, Jughead Jones.” Betty finds herself becoming choked up again, but Jughead breaks the tension before she can.

“Oh, you think I’m gorgeous too?” he smirks.

“Absolutely,” she grins back, reaching up to kiss him.

Her exhaustion disappears the moment he cradles her face in his palms to kiss her more thoroughly. Jughead walks them back to the bed until he’s sitting on the edge and Betty climbs up to straddle his lap. His hands are fire on her skin as he drags the zipper down and pulls the shoulders of her dress over to fall around her middle so he can press his lips to her sternum.

“God, Jug,” Betty breathes, grinding down harder on top of him. She runs her hand through his hair, displacing the beanie, and holds his face to her as he yanks the cups of her bra down to suck on her breast. They fall down to the covers, moaning loudly into each other’s mouths and rocking their hips together. She can barely breathe she’s so full of need but where most of their trysts so far have been the definition of hot and heavy, this one feels different; there’s just as much passion and as many touches that send her head spinning, but the whole thing is softer, gentler, and Betty simply feels so much in this moment that she could cry.

She sees what Veronica meant about him looking at her like she’s hung the moon—the reverence in his eyes is overwhelming as he pushes inside her and then they’re closed and Betty is the one with awe sparkling in her gaze.

They move together with the push and pull of their breath, both gasping for air whenever their lips move apart but neither relenting to let the separation last longer than a few seconds. Jughead’s hands move expertly against her skin and she’s falling over the edge, her body full of electricity that never stops buzzing, even after the groan of his release is muffled by their kiss, after they keep kissing until Betty’s lips feel chapped, after they brush their teeth side by side.

Betty falls asleep in his arms again, lulled by the steady beat of his heart against her and Jughead using his fingers to gently comb out her crown of braids.

* * *

She wakes to him rustling in the dark, moving around to pick up his discarded clothes, and her heart clenches painfully.

He’s leaving. And he hadn’t even woken her up.

It’s so early and her emotions are so raw, delicately stripped to the bone from every moment with Jughead this week that she thought could be—wanted to be—more, and she so fiercely misses him next to her that Betty can’t stop the choking sob that bursts through the silence.

“Betty, Betty, hey shh, what’s wrong?”

Jughead is on the bed, pulling her to him and stroking her hair before she even has a chance to register that she’s crying. But she is crying, hard enough to make speaking impossible, and she just gestures aimlessly between the crumpled suit jacket in Jughead’s arms and the door and her.

“Oh, Jesus, Betty, no,” Jughead cups her face to move her gaze to his. She can see tears of his own pooling and she feels a perverse kind of relief that he is equally upset. “I wasn’t leaving, I just wanted to change so I could go return the suit and pack before you woke up.”

“But,” she breathes between shaking cries. “But you _are_ leaving.”

Jughead sighs heavily. “Yeah. I know I am.” He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, the crown of her head, whispering for her to go back to sleep and he’ll only be gone an hour.

Betty sleeps fitfully but, true to his word, Jughead slips back through her door before she knows it and then he’s under the covers with her once more. It feels absurd that someone she’s known for mere days can bring her such a sense of peace, but as soon as he pulls her into his chest, Betty’s entire body relaxes back into sleep.

When they wake again, it’s to sunlight peeking through the curtains and Jughead’s alarm blaring. “I set it for check out,” he mumbles.

While her heart sinks at the reminder, it’s less intense than the early morning hysterics. Betty’s willing herself to be an adult about this now, to acknowledge that a five-day vacation fling shouldn’t derail her life, as much as she may want to let it.

Jughead is also subdued, saying nothing but letting his touches linger when brushing past her or handing her clothes from the chair or following her downstairs for breakfast. There’s no passionate elevator kiss, but Betty is almost glad for it. So much about the night before was—much as she dislikes the word—perfect, and trying to do anything now feels like a wash.

They forgo sitting in the dining room, choosing instead to bring bagels and coffee over to the couch they’d shared the other day. Betty rests her legs in Jughead’s lap, looking over her coffee cup at him and smiling softly.

He smiles back from behind his own coffee, briefly squeezing her thigh before turning his attention to his plate of bagels. Betty giggles as he slathers on cream cheese and eats one half in two bites, blushing when she thinks of some of the other impressive things his mouth is capable of.

He must see her from the corner of his eye and know precisely what she’s thinking because he quirks an eyebrow in her direction.

“I know you’re thinking dirty things at breakfast, Betty. At least let me eat my bagel in peace before you objectify me.”

After a while, they’re joined by Veronica and Archie. For being in a similar situation, the pair seems less morose and merely very satisfied from their unexpected meeting.

“Well, Archiekins, this is where I leave you,” Veronica announces. “I have a date with a double black diamond.” They end their brief relationship with a disgusting amount of PDA wherein Betty sees too much of her best friend’s tongue and she knows Jughead is getting an eyeful of _his_ best friend being groped.

Archie looks dazed when Veronica leaves with a wave, flopping onto the chair beside them.

“Some trip, huh, Jug?”

He’s looking Betty as he answers, hand back on her thigh. “Some trip, Arch.”

All too quickly, the coffee cups are empty and the front desk is printing the bill and Archie has brought the Jeep up to the front drive. Jughead pointedly asks him to load the bags and takes the opportunity to press Betty up against the driver’s side door. The kiss is short, but Betty still feels it down to her toes.

And then the bags are in the trunk and Archie leans over the console to honk the horn and Jughead reluctantly climbs in his car. He rolls the window down for Betty to rest her elbows on the frame as she talks.

“Happy New Year, Jughead.” She can’t let herself talk much more for fear of dissolving to tears again. “I’m going to miss you.”

Jughead smiles ruefully and leans through the open window to press his lips against hers and Betty lets her eyes stay closed for several beats after he’s pulled away. Perhaps if she prolongs the moment, it won’t have to end. “Don’t be a stranger, Betty Cooper.”

And she isn’t.

They text for the duration of Betty’s stay at Lodge-Lodge to exchange anecdotes about their moping best friends, Betty’s ski students, Jughead’s writer’s block and grad application anxiety; they video chat when Betty gets back to the Cooper family home because she needs to pack and Jughead doesn’t believe that her bedroom walls are actually bubblegum pink; he sends her photos of the famous Pop’s diner, complete with a mouthwatering plate of waffles and a message reading _thinking of you._

With each day and each message, their separation weighs less and less on her. She doesn’t know what to call this feeling—Veronica says hers is a sex hangover, Polly looks starry-eyed and calls him the one that got away, and she doesn’t bother asking her mother, knowing it will only result in a lecture.

All Betty knows is that when she exits the baggage claim at Oakland airport, she can take a deep breath for the first time since watching Jughead drive away.

She turns her phone back on as she’s waiting in the cab line and sees that she has a text message from Jughead.

**_Hey, what are your plans on March 1-4?_ **

**_Depends,_ ** she taps out. **_Why?_ **

**_So turns out there’s some prestigious MFA programs on the West Coast and I figured I should come visit them in person before applying._ **

And then Betty is laughing in complete giddiness, ignoring the strange looks from people around her, and basking in the warmth of the California sun.

 

 

_fin_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all she wrote!
> 
> for real though, thank you so much to everyone who's come on this journey with me. I had a lot of fun writing this fic and it was really lovely to get back into a place where I was excited write. thank you infinitely for all the love and comments and I hope this final chapter did the world justice. 
> 
> as always, please leave a comment if you can :)

**Author's Note:**

> pretty, pretty, _pretty_ please let me know if you enjoyed!


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